Bones let me go, whirling around and flying across the room to Nick, who tried to snatch another hostage. Nick didn’t make it. Bones plowed into him hard enough for both of them to smash through the wall. I ran, hopping over people, in time to see Bones twist his knife in Nick’s chest.
I relaxed. Silver twisted through the heart meant curtains for Nick—and any vampire.
Bones gave one last twist for good measure and then drew his blade out, his eyes flickering over me.
“You’re bleeding,” he said, concern creasing his face.
I touched my cheek, where someone’s belt or shoe or whatever had scored me when Nick was using people like human speed bumps to slow me down.
“You’ve been shot, and you’re worried about a scratch on me?”
Bones came over, touching my face. “I heal instantly, luv. You don’t.”
Even though I knew what he said was true, I couldn’t help but feel his back to reassure myself that his skin was smooth, no more shredded flesh from the bullets.
“Speaking of, there are dozens of injured people here you need to heal. You can get to my scratch later.”
Bones ignored that, drawing his thumb across a fang and touching the cut it made first to my cheek, then to my mouth.
“You always come first for me, Kitten.”
No one else called me that. To my mother, I was Catherine. My team called me Cat. To the undead world, I was the Red Reaper.
I licked the blood off, knowing that arguing with him was useless. Besides, I couldn’t help but feel the same way when it came to Bones.
“All right,” I said, the burning now gone from my cheek. “Let’s wrap this up.”
The girl Nick had thrown at one of my men was lying a short distance away. Bones gave her a sweep of the eyes, saw she wasn’t physically hurt, and moved on.
“That’s a…he’s not…” she started to babble, seeing his fangs and glowing green eyes.
I patted her shoulder. “Don’t worry. You won’t remember any of this in ten minutes.”
“B-but what…?”
I ignored the rest of her stammering and started checking on the other people. No one seemed to have gotten killed, thank God, aside from Nick. Bones had healed the other girl who’d been taken hostage. Now the only thing on her chest was a blood smear and a tear in her shirt where my knife had been. We’d gotten lucky.
“Damage report?” I asked Cooper, who was kneeling over one of the patrons who’d been chucked at me.
“Not too bad, Commander. Multiple fractures, abrasions, contusions, the usual.”
I watched as Bones picked his way through the injured to force the ones in serious condition to swallow a few drops of his blood. Nothing worked like vampire blood for healing.
“Another Code Red, querida,” one of my captains, Juan, observed. He pointed to the loudmouthed vampire across the room being restrained by Dave, our other team captain. Dave was a ghoul, which meant he could hold the wriggling vamp. None of the humans on my team could have managed to.
I nodded. “Unfortunately.”
Juan sighed. “That’s three times in a row. You’re not easily camouflaged, even with a different eye and hair color.”
He wasn’t saying anything I didn’t know. I caught Bones’s look, and his face nearly screamed, I told you so.
Things had gotten more dangerous in recent months. Too many people in the undead world now knew there was a half-vampire human who hunted them, and they knew what to look for.
I glared at the captive vampire. “Thanks for blowing my cover.”
“I only wanted to buy you a drink,” the vampire sputtered. “I wasn’t even sure it was you, but your skin…it looked too perfect to be human, no matter that you breathe. And you’re a redhead, I saw that when you raised your arm. The shadow of hair there wasn’t blond.”
Incredulous, I hefted my arm and inspected its shaved crease. Now I’d heard everything.
Dave studied my armpit, too. “He’s right. Of course, who’d think people would be checking out your armpit?”
Who indeed? I ran a frustrated hand through my dyed blond hair. There were no more colors left for me. I’d done black and brunette, too, to try and throw off my targets, plus wearing multiple-colored contacts, but lately it hadn’t helped.
“Juan, hold these,” I said, handing him my knives. After blinking several times, I got the brown contacts out. Ah, relief! They had been annoying me all night.
“Let me see them,” the vampire suddenly asked. “I’ve heard, but can you show me?”
Dave tightened his grip. “She’s not a carnival freak.”
“No?” I sighed, and then let my eyes blaze forth.
Their new glow shone like twin emerald headlights, exactly as all vampire eyes could. Indisputable evidence of my mixed heritage.
“All right, start talking. Tell me why I shouldn’t kill you.”
“My name’s Ernie. I’m from Two-Chain’s line. Two-Chain is a friend of Bones’s, so you can’t just kill me.”
“With friends like you, who needs enemies?” Bones said scathingly, gliding over to me once he’d finished healing the injured humans and instilling their new memories with vampire mind control.